Friday dawned overcast and foggy, in a very atmospheric, moody sort of way that actually made the city look kind of great. The forecast was for rain, and I'd cleverly brought my rain boots, so of course, I decided to wear heels out to lunch and gallery hop. *smacks forehead*

This turned out to be a bad decision. After Meg joined us for a fabulous, warm, friendly dining experience at one of my new favorite places, Cookshop, (I had a gorgeous, surprising little salad with chicken, green olives, golden raisins, toasted almonds and a flawless zinfandel vinaigrette--as well as two Gin & Jersey cocktails, yes, it was that kind of lunch) we started hunting around Chelsea for art. There's about a 10 block stretch there that's just littered with galleries, and the walls in our new house are looking very empty, and I'm kind of sick of buying framed posters. So. Real art! Like grown ups! This was the plan. The first gallery we stumbled upon was really the best. Almost more of an art dealer than a true gallery, they displayed art from several artists rather than featuring a single person, and had in stock many more pieces than were out on the floor. They were helpful and knowledgeable, and we loved two of their artists. Both from Maine, weirdly, and it turns out they know each other. Charlie Hewitt (left), who does these extravagant multi-media pieces in bold colors, and Tonja Hollander (right), a photographer whose work is all very dreamy and romantic, which is just what I want for my office. We didn't buy anything yet, but we got a bunch of catalogues, a couple of business cards, and headed out to see some more galleries. We encountered many crazy things, some great, some not, but nothing else that I'd necessarily want to have in my house and look at every day. One gallery we saw was filled with criss-crossed black wire, like a spider web. I'm not kidding, you could get maybe three feet inside the door before you'd be caught in it. Another place featured still from the movie Grey Gardens, which I'd never heard of but which is evidently quite insane. Just when my feet were starting to hurt, and I was reaching the level of fed upedness with the post modern stuff that made it start to look like neon vomit on canvas, we got caught in a torrential downpour. Like someone upended a bucket over our heads. We hid under an awning for a while, hoping it would ease up, but it didn't, so Nick valiantly sloshed out into the street to throw himself bodily in front of a cab and pray that it would stop. Did I mention it was 5:00, and all the cabs were going off duty? Whoever came up with the system where the cabs switch shifts right at rush hour should be SHOT. At any rate, we finally scored a cab and went back to the hotel, where we dried off (my heels were dead, and had to be resuscitated) and had MORE cocktails (this time a strange cucumber martini concoction that didn't really work) before heading out to meet Meg's brother Jeremy and his lovely new bride, Miriam, for dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar, David Chang's tiny, dark Lower East Side take on Korean Nouveau cuisine. If you don't like pork, you will not like this place. The menu says straight out, "We do not serve vegetarian-friendly items", and it's no joke. Since I happen to love meat (insert dirty joke here), I was thrilled. The menu is packed with tempting options, and since there were five of us, we ordered a big mix of them and tried everything. Meg's and my favorite dish turned out to be the Banh Mi, a traditional Korean sandwich that Chang does with three unspecified kinds of terrine involving offal. It was amazing, rich and flavorful, with bright spots provided by cilantro and chili pepper, and the satisfying crunch of good baguette. But really, everything was good. Everyone else preferred the steamed buns with pork belly, hoisin, scallion, and cucumber (right), which were pillowy and light, stuffed with wicked fatty pork belly that melted in your mouth. The service was a little L.E.S.; the sort of service that prompted Jeremy's "I've got better things to do with my time than be treated like shit by you", but mostly we'd killed several bottles of wine and sake, and didn't really mind. And from there we headed over to Death & Co., where we crowded around a booth in the back and had, you guessed it, more cocktails. I stuck with the champagne drinks, neither of which blew my hair back (one had bourbon in it, which seemed like a good idea when I ordered--I love champagne! I love bourbon!--but turned out to mainly be odd, and the other tasted like it was half bitters, which was just nasty) but the conversation was excellent. When we finally staggered home to the Mercer, it had stopped raining--or maybe I was so happy, I just didn't notice it anymore.

Posted by Louisa Edwards at 9:53 AM